


Warmth

by quantumoddity



Series: Everything's Okay AU [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Cute Kids, Eliza is just the best, Everything's Okay, F/F, F/M, Female Friendship, Fix-It, Fluff, Maria gets the happiness she deserves, Recovery, happy endings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 08:08:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11551062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumoddity/pseuds/quantumoddity
Summary: Maria Lewis, formerly Reynolds, has a new job, new friends and a new love. Her pain is far behind her.





	Warmth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MinkyForShort](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinkyForShort/gifts).



“My mother always hoped my kids would end up like me,” Eliza sighed gently, shifting little sniffling Liza on her hip, tenderly wiping away some of the shiny snail trails running down her daughter’s cheeks, “Guess they did…”

She turned her face and chuckled apologetically, “I’m so, so sorry.”

Maria had to smile, Eliza’s upturned lips were always so infectious. It was like she pulled good moods and sunny moments out of nowhere and, even better, let her friend share them. Like she was holding an umbrella up against the rain that Maria seemed to spend most of her bad days in, that she’d convinced herself was just her version of normal, but Eliza gladly suffered a little of the wind and the pattering mist to let Maria shelter under there with her.

“It’s my job,” she pointed out as she wrestled her hair, finally allowed to grow thick and wavy and naturally in the last few years, into a solid bun at the nape of her neck, “And my pleasure.”

“But after AJ’s fractured finger yesterday and Philip’s black eye the week before,” Eliza sighed a little fretfully, taking a seat on one of the hard plastic chairs made for people much littler than Eliza herself that sat in a perpetually neat row along the left wall of Maria’s nurse station, below the colourful sunburst mural and the growing population of pictures from her young patients, little thank you’s for smiles in the corridor on the morning, sweets pressed into palms to reward tackling injections, for hugs and band aids and spoonful’s of medicine.

Maria loved looking at that wall. Of course, Susan’s pictures went right in the centre.

“And this little madam,” Eliza rolled her eyes with more than a little bit of affection, pushing back her little girl’s lion mane of ringlets where some had stuck to her tear stained face, still a picture of misery, “Who seems determined to break every bone in her body before she’s six years old.”

“N’ma fault, mama,” Liza put up a feeble protest, always ready to argue back, too much of her father’s blood in her veins not to get defensive.

“Oh?” Eliza smiled gently, her heart softening considerably at poor Liza’s weak indignance, cuddling her little girl closer, letting her rest her head on her chest, “So it wasn’t your fault you were up in that tree, huh?”

Liza considered the tricky logical corner that backed her into. She pushed her bottom lip out, “Yes. AJ dared me.”

Maria muffled her giggle into her palm, covering it up by pretending to rattle the tin of tongue depressors with an errant elbow. Eliza was hiding a smirk herself, sticking her tongue out across the room at her friend when Liza wasn’t looking.

AJ’s reputation preceded him. Apparently becoming a teenager hadn’t matured him any.

Good, Eliza would think, when she saw him dropping water balloons on his elder brother’s head from the upstairs window or throwing clever innuendos at her Alex from across the breakfast table. She hoped he never changed, she hoped none of them ever did, they were perfect the way they were.

Though, she amended that thought in her own mind, editing her own thoughts. She’d like her little namesake’s penchant for getting herself into trouble would fade. Just a little.

“Well how about the next time AJ dares you to do something,” Eliza chuckled, “You tell him to go take a hike. Alright?”

“Okay,” Liza gave a shaky sigh, the movement making the ache in her arm, the deep burn buried under her skin that had been throbbing since she whacked it on a branch falling out of the tree in the backyard and, thankfully, into her father’s arms, flare up angrily and a low wail escape her lips, “Mama, it hurts.”

Eliza’s heart broke, the way it always did when one of her children was hurting. Maria nodded gently, motioning for her to turn Liza forward, kneeling in front of the chair, pulling her white nurse’s coat around her.

“Well, let’s see what Auntie Maria can do about that, huh?” she smiled gently, “Can I have a look at your arm please, pumpkin?”

Liza looked like she was about to, for just a moment, before it jostled her arm and she turtled right back into Eliza’s arms with a frightened squeak.

Maria’s gaze softened, and she murmured in a comforting, low tone, “Oh honey, I know it’s sore. I promise, I only want to help.”

She’d quickly realised after fulfilling her dream of working with children that she had a natural talent for getting frightened little ones to put their faith in her, trust her at their most vulnerable moments and believe her when she smiled and told them that everything was going to be okay.

Of course, Maria had had plenty of practise doing that, with one scared, frightened little girl in particular, her little Susan, her dove. She’d somehow made those words believable back then, as she’d pressed Susie’s thin little body against her chest like she could somehow fold her up good and small and tuck her away safely in her heart were no whisky stained breath and careless swinging fists could hurt her.

Doing it now, for these sweet kids, was so much easier. Because now Maria knew it was true, things really were going to be okay.

Liza peeked out at her auntie dolefully, her pain brightened eyes making her look like a little jungle mammal. Maria smiled encouragingly, the deep red lipstick perfectly applied to her lips enchanting the little girl and earning her the last scrap of trust she needed.

Maria loved the bright red lipstick she wore, she always had ever since she’d saved up her money for two weeks as a thirteen-year-old dizzy on freedom and independence, to buy her first tiny stick of it from the grown-up counter of the department store. It made her feel powerful, strong, made her stand just a little taller.

James had told her it made her look like a whore.

Now, every time Maria put on that lipstick in the bathroom mirror while Susie sang loudly and tunelessly and beautifully in the shower or saw the smudges of it on the lid of her coffee cup halfway through the day or noticed the gloss of it on the lips of her girlfriend Martha, the ghost of their sweet goodnight kiss that made Maria’s heart soar because yes, such a honey perfect moment deserved to live on; every time she saw it, Maria would grin and feel such pride, her painted lips would turn upwards in a stunning smile.

James could keep his words. She had things that were real.

 

Once she could carefully study Liza’s little arm, poking gently at her tawny skin, she could nod and keep her promise. Everything really was okay, nothing broken, just a nasty sprain and probably some internal bruising. Wearing a sling for a few days and a short course of painkillers would take the youngest Hamilton back to her usual bouncy self. She’d be tumbling out of the ancient, awkwardly curving oak tree and (hopefully) into Alex’s arms by next Sunday.

“See, pumpkin?” Maria beamed as she expertly tied the knot behind her curtain of curls, “Just got to wear your special pirate sling for a while and all the hurt will be gone.”

“What do we say to auntie Maria, Liza?” Eliza smiled proudly from where she perched on the examination table, swinging her legs. Though who she was prouder of out of her daughter and her friend, it was impossible to say.

“Thank you!” the girl with Eliza’s name and Alex’s features, the perfect mix of both her parents, chirped brightly and pulled Maria down by the lapels of her coat for a kiss on the cheek.

Maria grinned so wide it illuminated her whole face, giving Liza a kiss right back so she ended up with a perfect red lipstick kiss on one cheek and waving as the little girl suddenly forgot all about her injuries and war wounds and sped out of the nurse’s office, determined to go play with the toys she’d seen in the waiting room.

Eliza shook her head fondly, sighing and looping the old beaded purse she’d carried around as long as Maria had known her, “That girl…”

“She’s wonderful,” Maria smiled and she meant it.

“So, how’s the rest of your week been?” she continued, her tone somehow always that bright and cheerful and ringing with the truth that she honestly did want to know the answer, “Apart from being run off your feet patching up my family, I mean?”

Maria chuckled, leaning against the counter, “You guys keep me busy, I’m not complaining.”

“I am,” Eliza rolled her eyes, “With as many kids as I have, you’d think one would have some sense of self preservation…”

“They’re too much like their father,’ Maria shrugged placating, “Well…I’ve yet to see Jamie in here?”

Eliza shook her head, “No dice. His hands are covered in burns. He insists that all good chefs have them.”

“Occupational hazard,” Maria smiled fondly, thinking of the box of frankly heavenly peanut butter brownies the quiet, contemplative middle Hamilton had given her the other week. They’d been so good, she and Susie and Martha had gone through the whole lot over the course of one Disney movie marathon.

Maria could remember a time when she’d so carefully guarded everything she ate, not just because there was little of it and her daughter’s needs always came first but also because even the slightest hint of a curve in her stomach, thighs or hips would bring down a hail of cutting words that made her not want to get out of bed, to pull the covers up over her head and sink into a world of sleep where she didn’t have to look at herself in any reflective surface.

Now she ate happily, she ate freely, she ate just to taste new things and revisit old favourites and just because she simply wanted to. And the mornings Maria didn’t want to get out of bed were usually because Martha would be wound around her, nuzzling at the musky hollows in Maria’s neck so pleasantly. And she looked at herself in the mirror proudly, fondly, like she was looking at the face of a friend rather than someone who she didn’t understand and felt betrayed by.

“Hey,” she chirped, a bemused smile spreading over her face, “What you said back there, about how you’re sorry your kids are like you? What did you mean there?”

Eliza blinked, tilting her head in that way she did, “Oh! Oh, the clumsiness, the constantly getting bashed about, that’s all from me.”

Maria was surprised, “I thought it was Alex?”

Eliza grinned, shaking her head almost proudly, “Nah, all me, hon.”

“No way!”

“Yes way!” her friend giggled, “I’ll prove it.”

Eliza began rolling up the sleeves of her cream coloured blouse, revealing her slim arms, “Okay, brief history of baby Eliza Schuyler’s exploits…”

She pointed with one prettily painted nail in a slate grey (done by Alex, Maria guessed, the guy had an odd talent for it) and she noticed an old faded scar.

“That one’s from where I fell into the pond out back of my parents’ place to save a duckling from getting eaten by a heron…” the finger travelled up and found another, slightly more gnarled scar, “That’s from where I fell off the roof, a baby blackbird got wedged in the gutter…,” a ridge of puckered, slightly shiny skin, “There was a fire in the barn one really hot July and I ran in to go rescue our gardener’s dog’s litter of pups…that one I got when the ladder slipped when I was painting the roof of my fort…see, there? I fell off some rocks down by the seaside and got my leg trapped…oh, my nose is crooked right there cos I was sliding down the banister and cracked my face off the tiles…”

Maria was creased with laughter, “Oh my god, Eliza!”

“So yeah,” Eliza blushed a little but she was laughing too, “You can blame my Alex for a lot but not that. That one’s on me.”

“Well, I’m glad you calmed down,” Maria chuckled, “Go on, get out before I start to lecture you…”

Eliza gave an exaggerated look of horror and dived for the door, pausing just before she moved out of sight, “Thanks for everything Maria. See you this weekend, yes?”

Maria nodded, “Sure,” her smile widened, “Wouldn’t miss celebrating you giving me another baby Hamilton to patch up every other day.”

Her eyes flickered down to Eliza’s abdomen, making her friend flush with happiness. Maria was one of the few people she’d told so far.

Once the goodbyes were said, Maria closed her eyes, still smiling, feeling like she’d always be smiling for the rest of her life.

She’d never felt so warm.

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the Everything's Okay AU, come to mydearest-eliza on Tumblr to learn more and celebrate otherwise ignored female characters!


End file.
